Friends of Palestine raise over £230,000 for Syria

UCLU Friends of Palestine have raised over £230,000 for the charity work aiding those affected by the ongoing war in Syria.

This money was raised through the event Empowerful 2.0, the second of its kind to be co-hosted by the UCLU Palestinian Society. President of the society, Yahya Abu-Seido, said on the societies Facebook page “when we come together like we did, there are no limits to the good we can do.”

“Empowerful isn’t an event, or even a movement. Empowerful is all of us, together,” Abu-Seido wrote in the same post.

Empowerful took the form of a series of short talks by 6 different speakers, all of whom delivered speeches aiming to inspire young people to make significant impacts in their chosen careers. Speakers included Ismail Jeilani, founder of Satifs, Yahya Abu Seido, former UCL student, human rights activist and co-founder of the Empowerful movement, and Noor Tagouri, who launched a campaign to aid her quest to become the first hijabi journalist on commercial television in the United States.

The money raised through the event came in the form of both pledges and cash donations. Human Care Syria will use this money to fund small and large scale infrastructure programmes throughout Syria.

In the past, money raised has gone towards building and maintaining an underground bunker school, providing medical kits and equipment to Syrian doctors and providing platforms so that Syrians can start their own business.

The campaign manager for Human Care Syria noted the significance of the Empowerful project saying that it “is a great example of how determined students can change the face of humanitarian development and charity work in the UK. We are very proud and honoured.”

The UCLU Friends of Palestine Society worked in collaboration with Satifs, who aim to help equip young people with the skills needed to be successful in modern society, and FOP, a charity which spreads awareness of the genetic condition fibrodysplasia ossificans progressive (FOP).